by Lee Weeks
‘Yes, sir.’
Sandy stood and stretched as she felt Mason move in his sleep. She was desperate to get up. She walked across to the other side of the arch, where she had once killed and eaten a rat and squatted and peed. From there she could watch anyone approach. She began a low growl.
‘Mason – it’s Spike. Tell your dog to back off. Mason!’
Mason turned over.
‘Sandy, come here, girl,’ he called. She wagged her tail as she obeyed and sat next to him to wait, keeping an eye on Spike. ‘Where’s Toffee?’ asked Mason.
‘He’s hurt. Train hit him. We saw the ambulance come. It was in a hurry so I suppose he’s alive. Not sure for how long. Jesus, look at your face.’
‘A train?’
‘Yes, a train. The police chased him. We’re all in a lot of trouble.’
Mason shook his head, confused. He couldn’t take it in.
‘He had this bag of stuff when it happened. He told me he was getting it for you.’ Spike opened the carrier bag from the chemist’s. ‘I suppose I can try and clean you up if you want and you can owe me?’ Mason didn’t answer. Spike laid out the contents of the bag on the blue coat and tore open a packet of antiseptic wipes, opened a bottle of antiseptic. Mason flinched as Spike cleaned up the cuts and stuck strips across to hold them shut. The cut beneath Mason’s eye opened up again immediately.
‘There – that’s the best I can do. I’ll bring you some food later, if you’ve got money. Did Toffee give you any? I know he had some on him.’ Mason didn’t answer. He lay back and closed his eyes and breathed hard through the pain. ‘Where is it?’ Spike put his hand inside Mason’s pocket; Sandy sprang forward and growled.
Spike got to his feet. ‘All right, all right – you can fucking starve then. Have it your own way.’
After Spike left, the day grew dark and Sandy grew so hungry she couldn’t settle, but she wouldn’t leave Mason. She watched him as he slept. She sniffed Mason’s face. She listened to him as he talked in his sleep and she lay close by to keep him warm.
Chapter 10
In the morning, Sandy opened an eye at the sound of the cars arriving to park for the day. She recognized the sounds of individual cars. She crept out to take a look and to watch the people. None of them ever took any notice of her or her master. She watched the young woman get out of her car. She did the same thing every day. She got out and put on her coat and then she reached back in for her backpack. It smelt of food.
At ten, Carter and Willis were back in Robbo’s office with him and his staff. They had worked late into the night.
‘Did you check her PC yet, Robbo?’ Carter turned in his seat to ask.
‘We’re still doing it. It will take time.’
Carter picked up the sheets to read through Olivia Grantham’s phone records.
‘About one in five of these texts is sexually explicit,’ said Hector. ‘And they’re from different men.’
‘Did you have trouble getting into the phone?’
‘No. I managed to bypass her code easily. It looks like she gives several men the same surname: Naughties. So we have Peter Naughties, Mark Naughties, JJ Naughties. I Googled Naughties. It’s a website for swinging Londoners.’
‘I know it. Naughties is the one advertised on the Tube, isn’t it?’ asked Carter. ‘The one with the woman with heavy eye make-up saying “Shhh” and the man stripping off in the background?’
‘That’s the one,’ answered Robbo.
‘Start phoning these men – the ones she’s been texting,’ said Carter, looking at Hector. ‘No – on second thoughts, ring all of the male contacts you can find on her phone. We need to know if they met her, if they had sex with her and, if so, then we need the details. Check out where they were on Sunday evening. Tell them Olivia Grantham has been involved in an incident and we’re trying to trace her contacts. Try not to give too much away. I want to know exactly who they are, what they do for a living, any previous for anything at all. We need to build up more of a picture of Olivia’s life and we need to talk to her workmates again. Someone must know who she’d been seeing.’
‘Do we need to be discreet?’ asked Hector. ‘They could be married.’ He looked at Carter’s expression. Carter had a face that read: ‘Who cares?’
Carter shrugged. ‘Okay. We’ll be respectful . . . for now.’
Robbo sat forward in his chair and pulled images up on his screen.
‘You attended the post-mortem?’
Carter nodded. ‘Yes. Dr Kahn, Harding’s stand-in, performed it. Have you got the post-mortem report yet?’ he asked.
Robbo pressed the download button on the screen and Willis came round to his PC to view it.
He brought up the photos of Olivia Grantham’s body on the mortuary table, then zoomed in and scanned down the photo of the first overall view of the body. Willis sat down in front of the screen.
‘Three cracked ribs, broken humerus.’ Robbo said, bringing up the X-ray. ‘Several bite marks,’ he added as he continued to study it. ‘Kahn says here that she died from a brain injury caused by a head wound, but that there was internal bleeding and a ruptured spleen. Beaten to death, basically.’
They took a few minutes to look through the photos. Carter sat back.
‘Mob frenzy that someone paid for.’
‘Gang rape can’t have been what she was looking for or buying in to?’ said Robbo. He looked at the photo of Olivia that was on the Linkedin site. It was the profile of a family lawyer. ‘She was headed for great things in her company: ambitious and bright. All the things you’d expect.’
‘Except her sex life was lacking and she was looking to spice it up,’ said Carter.
‘You think of lawyers as cautious types,’ said Pam. Her desk was neatly divided into piles of files. She was the senior researcher in the room. She spent her time trolling through details on websites and checking facts.
Carter shook his head. ‘Not this one, Pam,’ he said as he continued looking through transcripts of the texts. ‘Her bucket list was getting longer by the minute.’
‘She had plenty of sex equipment in her flat,’ said Carter. ‘She’d already tried more than the average person.’ He looked Willis’s way. She was quieter than he liked her to be. He wished she’d spend more time speaking her thoughts.
‘Detective Willis?’
‘Yes, guv?’
‘The sex equipment in Olivia Grantham’s flat. Is she a giver or a taker?’
‘The hood with the mouthpiece was definitely a woman’s. I think she must have been submissive.’
‘Yeah . . . submissive but not suicidal, huh?’ said Carter, turning round to Robbo. ‘I think she must have been still learning – she was pushing the boundaries of her sexual experiences . . .’
‘Any good photos of her on the phone, Hector?’ asked Robbo. ‘Anything we can give Intel, to try and spot her on CCTV in the area around? She may have checked out this place before she went there on Sunday evening.’
Hector smiled, embarrassed. ‘Brings a whole new meaning to selfies. But yeah . . . a few headshots, normal ones. I’ll download her photo library and see who she’s with in them.’
Carter leant back in his chair to think. ‘Pam – your comment about her being a cautious type – you’re right. It had to have been someone she trusted enough. She wouldn’t have met someone in there that she didn’t know, that she hadn’t had sex with before. She was a bright woman – calculated-risk taker. How far are you on the list of phone contacts, Hector?’ Carter looked across at him.
‘I’ve phoned three so far. Haven’t been able to get hold of two others. Just about to try this one now.’
‘Okay, I’ll give it a go. Pass me over your list. I want to ring the Mr Naughties myself.’ Hector handed Carter the sheet of names. ‘Can you give me a line that can’t be traced?’ Hector nodded. Carter read off the first number on the sheet and rang from the phone on the desk. He put it on speaker. The first two numbers went to voicemail. The thir
d call was answered.
‘Hello, is that Peter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Peter, this is the customer services department from Naughties Dating for Consenting Adults.’
‘What? Who?’
‘Naughties website. You subscribe?’
‘You shouldn’t call me.’ He hung up.
‘Okay – give him thirty minutes then we’ll try again.’ Carter rang the next number on the list.
‘Hello?’
‘Yes? JJ Ellerman speaking. Mermaid Yachts. How can I help?’ Pam and Hector stopped working.
Robbo had already started typing the name and the company into Google. Willis kept her eyes on Carter as she listened to the call. The reception wasn’t brilliant on speakerphone.
‘Hello, sir,’ Carter said. ‘Naughties Dating here – London’s favourite sexy adult encounters website. This is customer services.’
‘Pardon?’ Ellerman sounded annoyed. ‘I can’t speak now.’ Robbo gave Carter a look that said: Really? Followed by: I want no part of it. Hector grinned. ‘This is supposed to be a discreet service. You should not be ringing me.’
Carter winked at Robbo. Robbo shook his head disapprovingly. But he hid a smile as he leant over his PC, watching the seach results appear on screen.
‘Don’t worry, Mr Ellerman, your information is secure. I just need to check we’re giving the best service to you that we can. You put that you’re looking for encounters in the London area? Would you be interested in extending your search countrywide?’
‘Look, I don’t have time now. I’m busy.’ Ellerman hung up.
‘Unethical, but effective,’ said Robbo. ‘JJ Ellerman – he’s registered to an address in Richmond. He is the MD of a boat-building company that builds luxury yachts. Mermaid Yachts, as he said.’ Robbo squinted at the screen. ‘Self-made, impressive.’
‘Let’s get the full picture of him and all the others on her phone, Hector. Go back a year for me. Get all the information on her you can. What type of men does she go for? What does she look for? She must have talked it through with someone. Talk to the girlfriend she met on Saturday night. What about Facebook, Pam?’
‘She doesn’t use it much. She uses Linkedin much more but always professionally rather than socially.’
‘She’s got several dating-site aps on her phone,’ Hector said. ‘Casualsex, Sparks, Adultfun. All of them for sex rather than soulmates.’
‘Try and get into her accounts.’ Carter looked to see if Robbo would react with his civil liberties chat but he was still checking out JJ Ellerman’s profile. Carter poured out the coffee. ‘Was Olivia actually single?’ Carter asked Hector. ‘Do we know if she had a boyfriend?’
Robbo answered: ‘So far as we know, she wasn’t seeing anyone. Never been married. Bright, fast-tracked-in-her-career type. I think maybe relationships were an afterthought to her,’ he added as he printed off a résumé on JJ Ellerman. ‘Whereas, this guy, Mr John James Ellerman of Mermaid Yachts, has been married for twenty-one years. He’s really big on relationships.’
Chapter 11
JJ Ellerman hung up and cranked up his classic rock CD as he hit the edges of Dartmoor. ‘You’re As Cold As Ice’ came on. He sang along as his Range Rover thundered over the cattle grid.
As he rose up and over his first hill he slowed down to take in the view. Austere and wild, clouds’ shadows raced across the stark moorland that was strewn with massive black-granite boulders toppling from dramatic peaks. The low winter sun gave a shimmering pink haze across the dried fern and yellow gorse.
He pulled over at the side of the road, where a mare and foal were grazing the sparse vegetation, and checked the coordinates on his satnav; then he reached back to pick up the printed directions from the back seat. Satisfied he knew where he was going, he picked up his phone and sent the same text to five people:
Miss you. Love JJ.
Ellerman skipped on to the next track in his rock anthems: ‘Stairway to Heaven’.
He placed his phone on charge and then followed his directions and drove through a small village, past an ancient church with a cluster of crumbling graves, then a white-painted thatched inn. He turned off at the edge of the village and came to the end of a stony track – the wisp of woodsmoke circled above the roof of a smart-looking barn renovation.
Turning into the steep driveway his car finally came to a stop outside the long barn.
Megan opened the front door and stood watching him. He thought how she was just as beautiful as the first time they had met six months earlier. Her eyes stayed intensely fixed on him.
He switched off the engine, got out and reached in the back for his jacket. The icy wind blew through the fabric of his thin shirt and dried the layer of perspiration on his skin.
She stepped towards him. ‘You were lucky you made it – the forecast is for snow. But you never know what you’re going to get here – four seasons in a day sometimes. You found me okay?’
‘Of course.’ He gave her the look that he called his Bond look – it involved a lopsided smile and a raise of one eyebrow. A combination created to charm.
‘Did it take you long?’
‘About five hours.’
Ellerman closed the car door and took a step closer to her. ‘It was a lovely drive. I was early so I even took a detour to see an art exhibition at a town on the way – in Ashburton.’ She looked impressed as she tilted her head and smiled. All the time her eyes were watching him.
‘I was wondering if your work would be there but I didn’t see it.’
She smiled with her eyes. He thought how full of passion they were, so dark. Her skin was luminescent. Her hair was long and flowing around her shoulders in a mane of black and silver.
‘I’m not exhibiting locally at the moment. My agent in London is taking everything I can produce. I can show you some of my canvases – works in progress.’ She reached out a hand as he came near. ‘I appreciate you coming all this way.’
He looked at her hands; they looked older than the rest of her – the years of oil painting had dried them.
‘It’s no trouble. I have an appointment in Exeter this evening, just finalizing a really big order for five yachts. But I couldn’t wait to see you again – that’s the truth. You left me wanting more.’ He leant in to smell her as he kissed her neck. She smelt of roses and musk. She wore a velvet dress that came almost to the floor. Between her breasts was a silver pendant. He watched it rise and fall then traced it with his forefinger.
‘A Claddagh pendant . . . Love, loyalty and friendship. Did you wear that especially for me?’
She gave a curious smile, her eyes shining. ‘Perhaps.’ She looked past him. ‘Looks like the mist’s following you. It wants to keep you here.’
Ellerman turned to see that all around was now obscured by white, and cold dampness filled the air.
She looked at him. ‘I hope you don’t intend trying to leave,’ she said, laughing as she turned towards the house.
‘No intention of it. One moment.’ Ellerman turned back to his car, opened the passenger door and, reaching inside, he pulled out a box that had been on the floor. It contained six bottles of wine.
‘I brought us something interesting to try. It’s ideal for the Dartmoor weather. I hope you’re keen on taking risks?’
‘Absolutely.’
He followed her into the house and down some stone steps into a flagstone-floored kitchen with a large Aga, a sturdy oak table and hanging pots and pans. He came behind her and slipped his hands around her waist. The velvet of her dress was soft to the touch. He heard her intake of breath.
‘But, are you ready for the first taste?’ she said breathlessly.
‘Yes.’
‘Close your eyes.’
She stepped away from him and he heard the clink of glasses and the sound of liquid filling a glass. He smiled knowingly.
‘Unmistakable.’
‘Damn!’ She laughed. ‘I opened the bottle as you drove in. I hoped
to be cunning. You heard the fizz as it hit the glass, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. Let me guess the vintage. Mmm. I can smell almond and cocoa and . . . dried flowers.’ He took a sip and held the liquid on his tongue for a few seconds before he swallowed and smiled and nodded appreciatively.
‘Yes . . . tactile, dark and chiselled, even. Dom Pérignon 2004?’
She laughed excitedly. He could feel her heat close to him.
He opened his eyes slowly. ‘What a perfect choice to cement our friendship.’
She smiled, happy. ‘When I read that on your profile – “my favourite thing of all is champagne” – then I knew you’d be romantic.’
‘And you were right. I have a sensory nature: sensual, hedonistic – open to pleasure, sharing pleasure.’ His eyes stayed on her and he took a step closer. ‘I want to see where you paint. I want to know everything about you.’
‘Then come with me.’
She picked up the champagne bottle and turned and led him through the kitchen to a room off the back of the house. It was high-ceilinged, with skylights, and one whole wall was glass set in stone. The smell of oil paint hit him. She was working on several paintings. Slashes of black and grey and yellow gorse covered her canvases. They were bleak, dark and full of movement and anger.
‘Magnificent.’
‘Thank you.’
She was watching him as he looked at her work; he went around the studio, pausing in front of each easel, each piece of art. He took his time. She had stopped by one she was currently working on: a whirl of blue spring sky above forbidding granite shelters. He walked over to her and stood behind her, pulling her closer to him, feeling her buttocks nestle into his hips.
‘Your paintings are magnificent, beautiful, wild. They make me feel exhilarated. They overwhelm me with passion and excitement.’
She led him back through the kitchen, champagne bottle back in hand, and upstairs to her bedroom; he ducked to avoid the low beam. It was beautiful, minimal, with white-plastered walls and old beams.
Megan poured him another glass of champagne.
